A former public defender sentenced to six months in jail in Portsmouth on abduction and conspiracy charges and awaiting sentencing in Chesapeake for assaulting a police officer has had his law license suspended.

Eugene B. Harris, who was a public defender in Chesapeake, had his license suspended today based on his Feb. 9 conviction on the Chesapeake assault charge, according to a news release from the Virginia State Bar…

//I don’t think Matt Hale would of ever committed violence if he would have received his law license. //

http://news.umt.edu/2010/02/021210mmac.aspx

“Ken Toole, former director of the Montana Human Rights Network, will moderate the panel discussion, which is held in conjunction with the traveling exhibition “Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate,” currently at the Montana Museum of Art & Culture. The exhibition features artists from across the United States who used white supremacist propaganda to create thought-provoking works of art.”

OUR HOLY BOOKS AND OUR RELIGION IS NOT PROPAGANDA.

I sent this letter to the president of the university at prestalk@umontana.edu:

[Mr George M. Dennison;

As the president of the University of Montana; you must cancel & remove the art exhibit "Speaking Volumes:Transforming Hate" from Missoula campus grounds and issue and apology immediately.

I must inform you that the University of Montana may be in violation of the first amendment of the United States. A common interpretation of the amendment regarding the states position is to prohibit "the preference of one religion over another or the support of a religious idea with no identifiable secular purpose" while the opposite can be interpreted as "selected desecration of a religion".

A civil suit may follow which you may be subpoenaed and forced to testify against the behalf of the University of Montana.

Below are links siting UMT's involvement with this violation and the federal governments recognition of Creativity as a religion "Chris Peterson v. Wilbur Communications". Also a letter from one of our leaders Rev Matt Hale.

http://www.umt.edu/montanamuseum/

http://www.rahowanow.com/religion-creativitylegal.htm

http://rahowadirectory.com/hale/?p=3

A formal letter will be sent to you in the mail shortly regarding this matter. Other grounds for a civil and criminal suit may also follow later.

Have a nice day.]

I received a reply from their head lawyer.

[

Dear Mr.  *********:

Please  address  all  correspondence regarding The University of Montana art  exhibit described  in your February 21  email to President Dennison directly to me  from  this  point forward.   After  I review  the letter  your email  describes  I’ll be responding on behalf  of the University. Thanks.

David Aronofsky

UM  Legal  Counsel

133  Main Hall

The University  of Montana

Missoula  MT 59812]

AronofskyD@mso.umt.edu

http://hamptonroads.com/2010/02/landowskis-killer-gets-42year-sentence-portsmouth

PORTSMOUTH

Two mothers took the witness stand Thursday to talk about their love for their children.

Robert Lee Barnes’ mother spoke of the good she still sees in her son and her hope that he will have a future.

The mother of his victim, Meghan Landowski, lamented the future her daughter will never have. And she struggled to understand why Barnes had brutally taken the life of a 16-year-old girl who had loved him “like a brother.”

After hearing the anguish of both sides, a judge sentenced Barnes to 42 years in prison for the April 2008 sexual assault and stabbing death of Meghan.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Earle C. Mobley had asked the judge to unseal crime scene photos and look at them again before sentencing Barnes. Circuit Judge James C. Hawks said there was no need; they were “etched” in his mind.

Chris Shortt cannot forget the images either.

Shortt found his stepdaughter’s body when he got home on April 10, 2008. She had been bound and stabbed more than 40 times, left facedown in a pool of blood.

On Thursday, he told the court what he remembered. How he found the front door open. How he walked in and initially thought he was looking at candle wax on the floor.

He said he called out to Meghan to help him get it cleaned before her mother got home.

Then, he saw her lying there white as a China doll, he said. He felt for her pulse and she was cold, her skin like putty.

Shortt stopped short of describing the fatal wounds to his daughter’s neck, saying he wanted to spare his wife, Angela.

“It just didn’t seem real that somebody could do that,” he said, reflecting on the scene.

Both Chris and Angela Shortt talked about how Meghan’s death had changed the family. They are in counseling, and their son, now 17, still has nightmares and sleeps with a night light.

“Losing Meghan crushed my world,” Angela Shortt testified.

She talked of the outgoing, bubbly girl who was both daughter and best friend. Both parents spoke of Meghan’s innate trust of other people.

She was a sophomore at Wilson High School at the time of her murder. The year before, both she and Barnes had been enrolled in the same magnet program for talented students at Churchland High School.

She was a dancer. Barnes, who was also 16 at the time of the crime, was described as a gifted violin player. They lived near each other and sometimes rode the same bus to school.

Barnes’ mother, Eboni Barnes Smallwood, read from a written statement in court, saying it was the first time she had spoken of the case.

She talked about how much she loved her son and how she would always be there for him. She asked the judge and Meghan’s family for peace, forgiveness and mercy. And she asked for prayers, saying, “We don’t have enough of that.”

Smallwood said both sides hurt. She talked about how she had raised her two sons alone, doing the best she could, and keeping them busy with school and off the streets.

A six-month investigation that included more than 100 interviews and the methodical elimination of suspects had led police to her son. When police first approached him in September 2008, he said he knew nothing about the murder. A few days later, he tried to throw police off by pretending he had just pulled a piece of bubble gum from his mouth, then offering it to a detective who had requested a DNA sample from him.

A subsequent lab test revealed the DNA on the gum was from a female.

In subsequent questioning, Barnes told police that Meghan had asked him to come over that day and that he climbed through a window when no one answered the door. He said a masked man who was already there forced him at gunpoint to bind and assault Meghan.

Prosecutors and the teen’s lawyers agreed in court when he pleaded guilty in September that he had acted alone. Barnes pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, attempted rape, aggravated sexual battery, abduction and statutory burglary.

On Thursday, prosecutors asked the judge to consider the brutality of the crime, the suffering it had caused to Meghan’s family and Barnes’ danger to the community. A psychological evaluation that was submitted with the pre-sentence report was sealed and only alluded to in court. Mobley said it left the court with no assurance that Barnes would not do it again.

Bob Morecock, one of Barnes’ attorneys, told the judge that Barnes had been more productive than most of his peers up until he was 16. He described the teenager as a complex and talented young man who had worked hard to make a life for himself, despite the absence of a father or other male role model.

Bill Swan, one of the prosecutors, said everyone involved in the case saw “the dichotomy of this young man.” But despite Barnes’ academic and musical achievements, Swan said, “we now know what we were seeing was the tip of the iceberg.”

Given a chance to speak before sentencing, Barnes stood and read a long apology to Meghan’s family. He said that his time in jail had helped him realize how important life is. Barnes said he wished he could “turn back the hands of time.”

He said he had grown up without his father, who was incarcerated.

After he spoke, the judge thanked everyone from the first-responders to the homicide detectives who had worked Meghan’s case.

“This community is grateful to you,” Hawks said.

Asking Barnes to stand, Hawks told him he “brought horror to the community.”

As part of a plea agreement and to spare Meghan’s family the turmoil of a trial, Mobley had agreed to not pursue a capital murder charge and not to ask for more than a 42-year prison term.

The judge gave Barnes a total of 148 years, with all but the 42 suspended. The judge ordered that he serve 25 years of supervised probation upon his release.

As a juvenile, Barnes did not face the death penalty but could have faced life in prison. Under current state law, upon his release, Barnes will still be subject to possible civil commitment as a violent sex offender, Mobley said.

Barnes is now 18 years old.

Mobley said 42 years is a long time to serve.

“I think the likelihood that he ever gets out is slim.”

A local sailor facing charges that he plotted to kidnap a little boy and rape him will be in federal court this afternoon for a bond hearing.

Alan Paul Strieper, 24, was arrested Friday on a sealed complaint charging him with enticing another man to travel here to kidnap a boy – any boy – for the purpose of raping him. Strieper is also charged with possessing child pornography.

He was arrested as part of a sting operation involving an undercover federal informant. According to the complaint, unsealed Monday, Strieper began an online chat with the undercover operative in November that culminated with a plot to kidnap a boy.

In Internet chats between the two recorded by federal agents, Strieper is heard professing his desire for boys as young as 2, the complaint says.

On Dec. 1, the chats had turned to thoughts of kidnapping someone, the complaint says.

“Have you ever thought of just grabbing a nice cutie that is walking home from school or something?” Strieper is quoted asking the informant.

“If your flexible, you could fly here and then we can drive to a town like 45 minutes away or something like that,” Strieper said the following day, according to the complaint.

He was arrested before attempting the kidnapping, the court records say.

A Navy spokesman said Strieper serves aboard the Norfolk-based amphibious transport dock San Antonio.

Kentrell L. Sanderson pleaded guilty Wednesday to capital murder in the slaying of his 12-year-old stepdaughter, and the judge who sentenced him to life said the prosecution had been compromised because the state medical examiner involved had drug convictions.

Prosecutors previously said they would seek the death penalty for Sanderson at his trial, which had been set to begin in March.

The girl, Shatierra Sigler, died in September 2008 in the Pleasant Avenue apartment she shared with Sanderson, her mother, Robin, and her little sister.

Sanderson slit her throat and then raped her. He told police Shatierra’s fate was decided by a coin toss.

Revelations about the doctor’s history of drug and alcohol abuse led the case to end with Sanderson’s plea Wednesday to charges of capital murder, rape, sexual assault and unlawful wounding. Sanderson was sentenced to four life terms without parole plus five years.

Last month, prosecutor Philip G. Evans II alerted the court and defense lawyers that Dr. Gary Zientek, who performed Shatierra’s examination, was charged with three felony counts of obtaining drugs by fraud in Henrico County.

Court records show the charges were reduced to misdemeanors, and Zientek was convicted and received a suspended sentence. Zientek’s medical license had been revoked in 2003, but it was reinstated in December 2007.

Circuit Judge Junius P. Fulton III said Zientek’s history of substance abuse, including while he was working as a doctor, “has compromised the Commonwealth’s ability to prosecute this case.”

In accepting Sanderson’s plea, Fulton said that “life without parole is a sentence I can live with.”

Shatierra’s uncle, Marc Hinson, said he could not.

“I have not made peace with it,” Hinson said outside the courtroom. “I can no longer get that guy the death sentence. I want to know why the state hired someone who prevented that from happening.”

The state’s Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Leah Bush, said the Tidewater office was aware of Zientek’s history when he joined the staff in July 2008 for a year long fellowship.

Zientek had alcohol and drug abuse problems, Bush said, but he had been sober for years. He submitted to and passed random screens for drugs and alcohol, she said. He was always supervised by another doctor because of his fellowship status.

Doctors in the office discussed whether Zientek’s history would cause problems on the witness stand, she said, but because of his unrestricted medical license, his clean recent history and his stellar work record, it did not appear to pose an insurmountable hurdle.

If prosecutors didn’t try to present him as an expert witness, she said, “how would they know?”

Zientek, who now works for the state medical examiner’s office in Alaska, said he did not believe his convictions were relevant to his work on autopsies. Other prosecutors told him his past would not pose a problem for his testimony, he said. He had just completed his fellowship in forensic pathology, he said, and had not yet testified in any cases.

Commonwealth’s Attorney’s spokeswoman Amanda Howie said prosecutors understood the family’s frustration.

“While we had sought the death penalty in this case, several factors – of which Dr. Zientek is a significant one – resulted in the guilty plea,” Howie said in an e-mailed statement.

Defense lawyer B. Thomas Reed, who was not involved in Sanderson’s case but has defended several clients against capital murder charges, said Zientek’s history may have compromised his testimony but not trashed it.

Still, Reed said, capital murder trials require so much time and money to prosecute that “it’s an enormous amount of effort to put into a case that has a question mark.”

Zientek completed his fellowship with the Tidewater medical examiner’s office in June. His medical license in Alaska is probationary because of his convictions, and he must abide by conditions such as attending therapy and substance abuse meetings. Bush said he left the Tidewater office on good terms.

Howie said her office would review other cases in which Zientek conducted examinations as they come to light.

In court, Hinson testified that he had been like a father to the girl he called Shay since the day she was born. They shopped together, he said. When she was 5, he taught her sign language that she still remembered at 12.

“I always considered myself her guardian,” Hinson said.

Evans displayed a series of pictures of Shatierra: with her cousins at Christmas, on her grandmother’s lap at a Fourth of July picnic, mugging for the camera in front of the apartment on Pleasant Avenue. Teachers wrote letters about Shatierra’s quiet nature, but also her diligence, politeness and the hard work she gave to her classes.

In the week after Shay’s death, Hinson said, he collected the contributions to the makeshift memorial that grew in front of her apartment. Those items remain at his house, minus 17 teddy bears – each month since her death, he has taken a stuffed animal to Shatierra’s grave.

“You go ahead and enjoy your life in prison,” Hinson said, looking at Sanderson. “Hell will wait for you to arrive and begin to serve your true punishment.”

Sanderson spoke briefly, reading from a paper he unfolded.

“I want to say how sorry I am for what I did to Shay,” he said. “I’m sorry for the pain and grief and betrayal to her family. I accept full responsibility for what I did. I hope one day her family will forgive me for what I have done.”

Tattoos land illegal immigrant MS-13 member in solitary
By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
February 7, 2010

Federal authorities tossed an illegal immigrant former gang member into solitary confinement in a Virginia jail because his many tattoos led them to believe he would take a leadership role among other MS-13 inmates, court documents said.

Jose Noe Uria Hernandez’s attorney said in documents filed in Alexandria’s federal court that his 30-year-old client left the gang before he snuck into the United States from El Salvador in early 2003. Hernandez had been in the United States illegally before and was deported in 2002 after serving a one-year sentence for stealing cars in Fairfax County, where he had been running with MS-13.

Hernandez was sentenced to one-year, four months in prison Friday after pleading guilty to being in the United States illegally.

He was most recently arrested in October while traveling from Nashville, Tenn., to Northern Virginia for a construction job, his attorney, Douglas Steinberg, wrote in court documents.

Since then, “he has been placed in solitary confinement because of his tattoos,” Steinberg wrote. Authorities are concerned that Hernandez “would take a leadership role among other MS-13 detainees.”

According to Steinberg, as a teenager in El Salvador, Hernandez “had little choice but to join a gang, either MS-13 or 18th Street,” MS-13’s bitter rival. He became fully immersed in gang society, a lifestyle that resulted in his many tattoos. Eventually, Steinberg wrote, Hernandez had to flee El Salvador because “flying death squads related to right wing paramilitary groups were shooting MS-13 gang members on sight.”

In 2001, Hernandez moved to Northern Virginia and fell in with MS-13 there. He quickly racked up convictions, including one for grand larceny in Fairfax County that resulted in his deportation a year later.

Hernandez quickly returned to Untied States, moving to the Nashville area for construction work. Steinberg wrote that since his return, Hernandez has led a “quiet life in which he started a family.”

But prosecutors say Hernandez “may have had good intentions when he illegally re-entered the United States,” prosecutors wrote, “but while he has been present in the United States he has continued to engage in criminal conduct.” Prosecutors cited Hernandez’s convictions of “violent assaults and battery” as evidence of his violent history.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime/Tattoos-land-illegal-immigrant-MS-13-member-in-solitary-83659332.html#ixzz0euDsWg0Q

Edwards was 18 when the shooting occurred June 10 on the victims’ porch in Brighton. Baxter Cuffee, 21, was killed, and Travon Wiggins, 19, was wounded.

The two had been joyriding in a stolen golf cart during the day. Wiggins testified that Edwards shot at them after Cuffee refused to give him the cart.

The first trial for Edwards, in October, ended in a mistrial after jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict. On Wednesday, a second jury took about three hours to find Edwards guilty of first-degree murder and other charges.

The jurors came back Thursday to deliberate the sentence. The jury recommended 40 years for the murder and 33 years for related malicious wounding, attempted robbery and weapon charges.

Edwards is scheduled to be formally sentenced March 24.

http://hamptonroads.com/2010/01/portsmouth-jury-recommends-73-years-fatal-shooting

Last weekend, the Virginia Horticultural Foundation held a workshop geared towards owners of landscape companies entitled “Spanish for the Green Industry.” During the seminar held in Virginia Beach, instructors led their classes in basic Spanish lessons as well as Latin American culture.

VHF education coordinator, Dawn Alleman told the Virginian-Pilot they began offering the course four years ago because the workforce for the landscaping industry is dominated by those who speak only Spanish.

Alleman said: “If you want to be a foreman in those types of places, you’ve got to have a decent grasp of Spanish.”

One of the attendees, Tom Ritter, owner of Ritter Grounds Maintenance in Norfolk, VA, took the class so that he might be able to speak to his workers for the first time in ten years without the help of a translator.

Ritter said: “I just want to be able to communicate with them on a day-to-day basis.”

Course instructor, Yolima Carr, passed out a book she has written to the class which contains English-to-Spanish phrases which might be helpful to landscapers, such as: “Take out the weeds in the flower bed, edge the bed, then blow the leaves and the clippings.”

She reminded the business owners that the ‘immigrants’ working for them are from their homes and families, and that because of their Catholic beliefs, may need certain days off.

Carr, who is the gardens curator at the Hermitage Museum in Norfolk, suggested that the workers be allowed to play Mexican music, and should be complimented on their work (“Hiciste un buen trabajo”).

Attendees paid $160 each for the five hour class.

This is yet one more example of those who fail to see the need to hire U.S. citizens, when an illegal alien will do it for less. That philosophy may go a long way in lining the pockets of unscrupulous employers, but in a time when so many Americans have been laid off, it is just shy of treason.

By the way, the group offering the class, the Virginia Horticultural Foundation, operates as a non-profit and as such enjoys tax-exempt status. The class was given at the Founder’s Inn, Christian Broadcasting Network founder Pat Robertson’s hotel and resort.

A Virginia man remains at large while another man is awaiting extradition to the county in connection with widespread home-improvement scams that have cost county residents more than $500,000 over the past several years.

Police have issued an arrest warrant for Leslie Alberto Irias, 39, of the 200 block of Pershing Avenue Northwest in Leesburg, Va. He and Mario Ramirez-Cardenas, 25, of no fixed address, are accused of defrauding a 55-year-old Wheaton woman and her family out of more than $90,000 while posing as licensed home-improvement contractors. They have also allegedly committed other scams across the county and in Virginia, according to Montgomery County Police Detective B. Mengedhot.

Ramirez-Cardenas is awaiting extradition from Kansas to Montgomery County. He was arrested in Kansas last month on domestic violence charges, according to Cpl. Dan Friz, a media relations officer with Montgomery County police.

On Nov. 11, 2006, the Wheaton woman and her husband agreed to give Irias and Ramirez-Cardenas a down payment of $90,000 to tear down a house on a property they owned at 12323 Dewey Road and build a new home in its place.

The couple first met Irias while he was working on a neighbor’s house and asked him if he could build them a larger home. The couple laid out plans for a five-bedroom house to Irias and took out a second mortgage to afford the construction. Irias originally asked the couple for the full $200,000 cost up-front but eventually agreed to a smaller down payment, said the husband, who owns and lives in another house with his family on nearby Big Bear Court.

“It was our dream house,” said the husband, who asked that he and his wife not be named. “Now our dreams [went] away.”

Irias and Ramirez never began construction on the Dewey Road house. After digging a hole in the couple’s front yard and ceasing construction on their neighbor’s house, Irias stopped all work, claiming to his clients that he was ironing out permit issues, according to charging documents filed in the Montgomery County Office of Consumer Protection.

The Wheaton couple became suspicious and quickly discovered that the men had defrauded several other residents in the area. When the couple tried to contact Ramirez-Cardenas and Irias, they found that the contractors’ phones were disconnected and that both the men and their construction company had disappeared, according to the charging documents.

In June 2007, the wife eventually called police, and detectives from the county’s Financial Crimes Section pieced together similar complaints from the Office of Consumer Protection to realize the men had conducted a full-scale scam.

Detectives determined the men had carried out the same type of fraud scheme at least five times in Northern Virginia, Germantown, Wheaton, Sandy Spring and Silver Spring. The men are responsible for defrauding residents out of more than $500,000 — and likely more, police say.

“That’s just the stuff that’s reported,” Cpl. Friz said in an interview. “So who knows what the guys have gotten out of other people over the years.”

On Dec. 23, Ramirez-Cardenas was arrested in connection with domestic violence charges against his girlfriend in Wichita, Kan. Wichita authorities discovered the fraud warrant Montgomery County Police had obtained in July 2007, and Ramirez-Cardenas is now being held without bond awaiting extradition proceedings.

Irias remains at large, and both men have been featured on the TV show “America’s Most Wanted” and its accompanying Web site.

Ramirez-Cardenas does not have a defense attorney listed in online court records, and a Maryland number listed for Irias was disconnected.

Irias, a Nicaraguan immigrant, was last spotted in Virginia selling fake IDs and traveling in a white van as a painter, according to an “America’s Most Wanted” case file. County police believe he transferred large sums of money to Nicaragua before fleeing Maryland, according to charging documents.

County officials say home-improvement scams in general have become more prevalent as home contracts dwindle and homeowners hunt for deals.

Phony contractors can get away with a large scheme over several years, because most home-improvement scams aren’t reported to police, Mengedhot said.

“A lot of times, people get embarrassed that they gave money to somebody for whatever, and then it falls through,” he said.

The cases that are reported are usually treated as civil matters or complaints in the Office of Consumer Protection. While the office can prosecute the scams, and consumers can file a suit, detectives don’t step in to investigate until police recognize a pattern of fraud, Mengedhot said. By then, the scammers have usually left town, leaving behind paper trails of fraudulent P.O. boxes and phone numbers, he said.

“The bad guys are concealed within the consumer law or the civil law, where they can hide by claiming they have a contract,” he said.

And it’s relatively easy to present a false, yet official-looking, certificate to unsuspecting residents, said Ralph Vines, an administrator with the Office of Consumer Protection. That’s because the county’s Circuit Court issues business licenses to applicants for a fee, which legally enables someone to conduct business in the county, such as selling their services as a home-improvement contractor. However, Vines said a county business license is not the same as a professional license to actually build a home, which is issued by the state and requires rigorous testing.

Vines said the Office of Consumer Protection is in talks with the Circuit Court to discern how a business license is used and handed out. In the meantime, there are steps consumers can take to analyze a potential contractor’s license, such as contacting the Office of Consumer Protection.

The county police’s Financial Crimes Section, which can be reached at 240-773-6330, would like to hear from anyone who may know the whereabouts of Irias. Callers may remain anonymous.

Police recommend several tips to avoid home-improvement scams, such as calling the Montgomery County Office of Consumer Protection at 240-777-3636 to find out if other residents have reported complaints about a specific contractor. Residents can also call the Home Improvement Commission in Baltimore at 410-230-6309 to verify a contractor’s license.

Police also recommend that consumers ask a lot of questions and make sure the contractor provides a Home Improvement Contract that both the consumer and contractor sign before work begins or money is paid. Consumers can check a specific license with the Maryland Division of Licensing and Regulations records at www.dllr.state.md.us.

For more information regarding home improvement and hiring a contractor, visit the Montgomery County Government website at www.montgomerycountymd.gov and click on “Departments,” then click on “Consumer Protection.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/12/30/mother-v-mother-former-lesbian-couple-battles-over-child/

There is an interesting custody battle underway in Vermont and Virginia that involves religion, same-sex unions, and artificial insemination.

Janet Jenkins and Lisa Miller were joined in a civil union in Vermont in 2001. Miller later moved to Virginia in 2003, renounced homosexuality and became an evangelical Christian.

Problem is, a year earlier Miller (pictured, right) had given birth to a child, Isabella, via artificial insemination. A Vermont family court judge, William Cohen, dissolved the union and gave custody to Miller and visitation rights to Jenkins. Miller, the biological mother, challenged the arrangement, arguing that her child was being raised evangelical and that exposure to Jenkins would go against their religion. But the supreme courts of Vermont and Virginia denied her appeal to prevent Jenkins, the non-biological mother, from visiting.

But Miller still wouldn’t allow Jenkins access to their daughter, according to a ruling by Cohen, and on Nov. 20 of this year he granted Jenkins full custody in order to ensure equal access to the child.

That, apparently, also did not sit well with Miller, who had been found in civil contempt of court. In a  ruling from last week that rejected her latest request to delay Isabella’s transfer, Cohen said Miller and the child were missing: “It appears that Ms. Miller has ceased contact with her attorneys and disappeared with the minor child.”

Here’s the scoop from the Times Argus and Associated Press.

Mathew Staver, Miller’s attorney, declined through a spokeswoman to comment to the AP on the case

“It is Ms. Jenkins’ intent when she has custody of Isabella to allow as liberal contact as is possible with her other mother,” said an attorney for Jenkins.